Video 022 Overcoming Performance Anxiety
Use this solution
To address a client’s internal psychological experience that’s affecting performance including anxiety, self- defeating beliefs, post-traumatic stress and injury. All these can undermine the ability of performing artists, workplace employees and athletes. This protocol can also benefit those with a history of anxiety about medical procedures who are facing another one.
Originator:
Hartung J.(2008) Enhancing Positive Emotion and Performance with EMDR. Luber; EMDR Scripted Protocols.
See also: Feener, R.S. (2004). EMDR a New Treatment Method in the Treatment of Performance Anxiety for Singers. Treatise submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Music; Florida State University School of Music.
Video production
Matthew Davies Media Ltd, Llanidloes, Powys. www.matthewmedia.com
Take-Away Section
What this covers
The case of a classical music soloist who developed performance anxiety or stage fright that threatened to undermine his ability as a performing artist. The video shows the use of the standard EMDR protocol with a three pronged focus on past, present and future to overcome this problem.
This video does not attend to the client’s skills and any deficits – these are properly the focus of coaches familiar with the situation in which the client seeks to perform.
How long
15.13 minutes
Related videos
See Video 007 Flash Forward; Video 008 Installing Future Templates
Go to ‘Take-away’?
See Wrap up: for the actual source of this case.
See Aide mémoire: for step-by-step guide to using this approach.
+ Wrap up
A life changing experience!
The case as portrayed in the video is based on what happened to Richard, one of the founders of emdrgateway, who was until recently when he retired, a bass-baritone singer who specialised in opera, Lieder and English song. He performed in opera, as guest soloist with choirs, and as a recitalist. He was also a member of a small group called ‘Bella Voce’ made up of professional singers and amateurs, like himself, who performed together. After the event when he forgot his words and had a horrible panic attack, it seemed to him that this one ‘bad’ experience seriously threatened his future as a singer.
Richard was working at the time as a family therapist alongside his wife Sally, who is also a founder of gateway. By chance, this problem happened before he was due to attend his first EMDR training course, and when the group were asked, by the EMDR trainer if someone had a problem to be solved, Richard leaped at the opportunity. The result was indeed life changing both as a singer and therapist.
+ Aide-mémoire
- Pay special attention to your language – be sure to keep a positive focus and avoid words like fear, failure, perfection and winning as they are likely to activate the sympathetic nervous system, i.e. the fight/flight response.
- Make sure the client has properly addressed the skills required to perform the task ahead of them. If not, advise them to address any deficit with an appropriate person familiar with the area in which they seek to perform.
- Take a history of how and when the client’s difficulties arose. In the case shown in the video, the difficulty had arisen during and after a ‘bad’ performance, and there was no previous history of this. Often there is a history, sometimes due to childhood experiences, in which case the Attachment Informed EMDR protocol (AI-EMDR) is useful in identifying the starting point.
- Begin by focusing on the past source of the difficulty and the worst moment. Desensitize and resolve this memory with the standard protocol. Be sure to keep the negative and positive cognitions in the same domain and that the positive cognition is reasonably achievable.
- Move onto the present triggers for anxiety especially those linked to future performances. This is anticipatory anxiety and the Flash Forward version of the standard protocol is specifically designed to address this (see Video 007)
- Move onto the future and install a future template. It can be useful to make sure the client has a routine to reduce anxiety immediately before he/she has to perform. If they do not have one, create one with them and incorporate this into the future template.